Articles such as Mr Stengel’s of course not only reflect but also help to generate the BBC poll finding that only in the US has Israel’s popularity actually risen, with 50 per cent saying they view it positively . . .

I believe the Irsh Times underestimates the number of Jew haters that use the boycott as a cover for their agenda. Because the calls for a boycott are mainly based on lies, I believe the majority do it to fulfil their agenda

All the machinations as to why a boycott of Israel is historically, intellectually or dangerously wrong are all beside the point and leave out the most important and full reason. It is wrong because it is based upon wrong beliefs, assumptions, anti-semitism and propaganda. It is wrong simply because it is wrong and Israel has done nothing to deserve it.

Michael, I have answered to you before, and I humbly give you the same perspective as before…..
IT IS WRONG BECAUSE THE TORAH SAYS IT IS WRONG!!!! I still think that if ISRAEL will get back to reading GOD’S BOOK, and OBEY what is commanded things will be very different.

The article is weak and its only praise is that such an article appeared at all. If a boycott is legitimate against Israel it would be 100 times more so against the Arab/Muslim countries who are not apartheid only because they have ethnically cleansed their countries of anyone to be apartheid with. Where are these boycotters against these Arab/Muslim countries? Maybe they respect the Arab/Muslim violence and terrorism, or fear it? They show their false self righteousness against a country they do not fear while hiding from those they do. That they do not fear Israel is an indication of Israels civility and non-apartheid status among nations. Israel if anything deserves praise for maintaining the level of democracy, freedom and civil rights enjoyed by all their citizens (20% of whom are Arabs/Muslims) while being attacked at all level by those who wish its total destruction and those who wrongly accuse her. This demonstrates a level of anti-semitism in those who wrongly only boycott or call for a boycott of Israel while ignoring those countries who legitimately deserve a boycott. When wrongly used against Israel it is only another weapon aimed to destroy Israel and should be called what it is, anti-semitic.

The aspect of the Irish Times comments I find lacking is that once again it focused on “Israel”, and ignores the greater abuses that occur with such frequency, regularity and prejudice the media ignores it. Apartheid committed in the name of Allah takes place daily in the Islamic world against all non-Muslims and even moderate Muslims. Extreme Sharia Laws enforced with increasing fervor in Egypt has made nearly 200,000 Coptics refugees, it didn’t require a civil war like the one that took place in 1948 and freed Israel, but the refugees of Sharia excesses number higher than the Palestinian refugee population in 1949. Three reasons it passes uncommented in the western press 1. It is accomplished without a shot being fired, hardly the grist for yellow journalism which the press of the West has become. 2. The refugees fleeing Sharia find sanctuary in other countries, not like the Palestinians who became a pariah in Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait and other nations that never accepted them with open arms and have become a permament refugee class in the anals of the UN. 3. A cowering western press corps intimidated and prejudiced in its coverage of the Islamists, unable to consider that elements of Islam itself is one of the principle reasons the Ottoman Empire fell into decriptitude that continues into the modern period. Where the intellectual pundits of the western media can not find enough to report on the chauvinism and fallibilities of Christianity they can find nothing similar in Islam, seldom has such hypocrisy been witnessed in an era of war where it is a central contributor.. I can’t decide if the reason for that is cowardice, intellectual dishionesty and intellectual nihilism or if the western press corps is motivated by hate mongering. Personally, I don’t think the Irish Times clever analysis of Israeli apartheid delves nearly deeply enough it is another of those fixated articles that obssesses on Jewish reactions to boycotts without laying the basic foundation of why Israel has to take more extreme means for self-preservation against increasingly hostile Islamic expressions in government that are too often the harbingers of crimes against humanity, and the real crime is that the west either by intimidation, bribery, intellectual hate mongering or self-loathing ignores the big picture for the comfort zone of continuing to focus on what they have accepted is the real problem, the Jews.